It is November 1918 and the scene is the city of Kiev in the Ukraine, lately garrisoned by the German Army of Occupation but now threatened by the approach of a large well-equipped army of Cossacks. There's no ammunition and food is desperately short in the city. But still attempts are made to raise an army of citizens to repel the invaders. Describing the impact of the collapse of the Tsarist Empire on a family of officers, this play centres on Alexei Turbin, Colonel of the White Guard, responsible for defending Kiev, and on his beautiful sister Helena, deserted by her husband and in love with a young lieutenant, Leonid Schervinsky.